trying to behave (but you know we never learned how)

Chapter eight

November 2013

Monday, the 11th, 4:45pm

New York, USA

Voices. That's the first thing Jimin registers.

Unintelligible. Far away. Blended together.

The second thing he registers is that his neck fucking hurts.

'Yoongi,' he croaks out, bringing a clammy hand up to rub at his face because he feels sweaty and gross and his eyes feel glued shut. 'Yoongi?'

The voices stop abruptly.

Jimin shakes his head and lets out a whimper, rubbing at his forehead when he slowly starts feeling the ache in his bones; his limbs hurt like hell and his hands are shaking.

Everything is warm and clammy and so fucking sticky.

'Yoongi,' he breathes out again, like it's some sort of prayer and brushes his fringe out of his eyes; rubs at them to try and open them, but it's so hard and he feels so lethargic. 'I-,'

'Holy shit, he's alive,' a girl's voice cuts him off abruptly, somewhere to his right, but it sounds far away, like the person's under water; or it could be because he's just so exhausted.

Jimin pauses.

Stills his movements immediately and perks an ear up as best as he can through the disoriented haziness. It's silent around him and the darkness behind his eyelids is comforting, in a way.

But he can't, for the life of him, remember where he is; tries to think through the disorientation.

Forces another whimper of Yoongi's name to die on his tongue.

He fell asleep on a street.

He ran away from home.

He slept on a fucking street, and now there's people talking around him.

His tongue feels like sand paper.

The sudden panic that pierces through his cloudy mind is a little comical, really. Enough to make him feel it, but not enough to bring him back to his full senses.

His head feels heavy.

'Is he, though?' this voice is different, a boy, heavily accented, and Jimin keeps his eyes firmly closed, dragging his hand down to clutch at his chest because the heavy sadness from before hasn't subsided in the least, and now he's also scared and his heart is going ham.

His shirt is grossly clinging to his skin with what feels like sweat and Jimin cringes a little.

'He moaned a bit,' the girl confirms matter of factly. 'Said something, I heard it,'

The boy clicks his tongue in response and the voices stop again.

Okay.

Jimin fell asleep in a street.

Now there's people talking around him. And the surface under him is vaguely starting to feel nothing like hard pavement gravel.

Shit.

He discreetly reaches out his free hand that isn't painfully fisted in the front of his t-shirt, and feels the space beside his leg, hopes the people don't notice because he would like to not put himself on the spot when he feels half dead and like actual shit.

Sheets. Scratchy sheets that are nowhere near soft. But sheets.

'Oh no,' Jimin whispers, bunches up the bed sheet in his palm for a final check. Definitely not a pavement.